STEVENSON AT 
MANASQUAN 

CHARLOTTE EATON 




Class JlJiiilif* 
Book ■' - ./ 



GopyrightN^. 



CDBfRIGHT OSFOSIC 



The Little Bookfellow Series 



Stevenson at Manasquan 



other Titles in this series: 
EsTRAYS. Poems by Thomas Kennedy, George 

Seymour, Vincent Starrett, and Basil Thompson. 
William De Morgan, a Post-Victorian Realist, 

by Flora Warren Seymour. 
Lyrics, by Laura Blackburn. 




Pen and Ink Sketch op Robert Louis Stevenson, by 

Wyatt Eaton 

Kind permission of Mr. S. S. McClure 



Stevenson at Manasquan 



By 

"^fAT^ Charlotte Eaton 

With a Note on the Fate of the Yacht 
"Casco" by Francis Dickie and Six Portraits 
from Stevenson by George Steele Seymour 




CHICAGO 

THE BOOKFELLOWS 

1921 



Three hundred copies of this hoolc by Charlotte Eaton, 
Boohfellow No. 550, Francis Dickie, Boohfellow No. 716, 
and George Steele Seymour, BooJcfellow No. 1, have been 
printed. Mrs. Eaton's memoir is an elaboration of one 
previously published by Thomas Y. Crow ell Co. of New 
York wider the title "A Last Memory of Robert Louis 
Stevenson" ; Mr. Dickie's notes have appeared in the 
New York World, and Mr. Seymour's "Portraits" have 
appeared in "Contemporary Verse" and "The Star" of 
San Francisco. 



■^^ 






Copyright, 1921, by 
Flora Warren Seymour 



i=i^ 



i)n! AS276:i7 



THE TORCH PRESS 

CEDAR RAPIDS 

IOWA 

NOV -en-' 



%i n. I 



STEVENSON AT MANASQUAN 

When I came face to face with Robert Louis 
Stevenson it was the realization of one of my 
most cherished dreams. 

This was at Manasquan, a village on the New 
Jersey coast, where he had come to make a fare- 
well visit to his old friend Will Low, the artist. 
Mr. Low had taken a cottage there that summer 
while working on his series of Lamia drawings 
for Lippincott's, and Stevenson, hearing that we 
were on the other side of the river, sent word 
that he would come to see us on the morrow. 

"Stevenson is coming," was announced at the 
breakfast-table as calmly as though it were a 
daily occurrence. 

Stevenson coming to Manasquan! 

I was in my 'teens, was an enthusiastic student 
of poetry and mythology, and Stevenson was my 
hero of romance. Was it any wonder the inteL 
ligence excited me? 

My husband, the late Wyatt Eaton, and Stev- 
enson, were friends in their student days abroad, 
and it was in honor of those early days that I 
was to clasp the hand of my favorite author. 

It was in the mazes of a contradance at Bar- 
bizon, in the picturesque setting of a barn lighted 
5 



by candles, that their first meeting took place, 
where Mr. Eaton, though still a student in the 
schools of Paris, had taken a studio to be near 
Jean Francois Millet, and hither Stevenson had 
come, with liis cousin, known as ' ' Talking Bob, ' ' 
to take part in the harvest festivities among the 
peasants. 

These were the halcyon days at Barbizon, 
when Millet tramped the fields and the favorite 
haunts of Rousseau and Corot could be followed 
up through the Forest of Fontainebleau, before 
Barbizon had become a resort for holiday mak- 
ers, or the term "Barbizon School" had been 
thought of. 

Now, of all places in the world, the quaint 
little Sanborn Cottage on the river-bank, where 
we were stopping, seemed to me the spot best 
suited for a first meeting with Stevenson. The 
Sanborns were very little on the estate and the 
place had a neglected look. Indeed, more than 
that, one might easily have taken it for a haunted 
or abandoned place — with its garden choked 
with weeds, and its window-shutters flaunting 
old spider-webs to the breeze. 

It was, of course, the fanciful, adventure-lov- 
ing Stevenson that I looked forward to seeing, 
and I was not disappointed; and while others 
spoke of the flight of time with its inevitable 
changes, I felt sure that, to me, he would be just 
Stevenson who wrote the things over which I 
had burned the midnight oil. 

He came promptly at the hour fixed, appear- 
ing on the threshold as frail and distinguished- 
6 



looking as a portrait by Velasquez. He had 
walked across the mile-long bridge connecting 
Brielle and Manasquan, ahead of the others, for 
the bracer he always needed before joining even 
a small company. 

Shall I ever forget the sensation of delight 
that thrilled me, as he entered the room — tall, 
emaciated, yet radiant, his straight, glossy hair 
so long that it lay upon the collar of his coat, 
throwing into bold relief his long neck and keen- 
ly sensitive face? 

His hands were of the psychic order, and were 
of marble whiteness, save the thumb and first 
finger of the right hand, that were stained from 
constant cigarette rolling — for he was an in- 
veterate smoker — and he had the longest fingers 
I have ever seen on a human being ; they were, in 
fact, part of his general appearance of lankiness, 
that would have been uncanny, but for the 
geniality and sense of hien etre that he gave off. 
His voice, low in tone, had an endearing quality 
in it, that was almost like a caress. He never 
made use of vernacularism and was without the 
slightest Scotch accent; on the contrary, he 
spoke his English like a world citizen, speaking 
a universal tongue, and always looked directly 
at the person spoken to. 

I have since heard one who knew him (and 
they are becoming scarce now) call him the man 
of good manners, or ' ' the mannerly Stevenson, ' ' 
and this is the term needed to complete my first 
impression, for more than the traveller, the 
scholar or the author, it was the mannerly Stev- 

7 



enso-n that appeared in our midst that day. He 
moved about the room to a ripple of repartee 
that was contagious, putting every one on his 
mettle — in fact, his presence was a challenge 
to a jeu d' esprit on every hand. How self-pos- 
sessed he was, how spiritual! his face glowing 
with memories of other days. 

He had just come from Saranac, Saranac-in- 
the-Adirondacks, that had failed to yield him 
the elixir of life he was seeking, where he had 
spent a winter of such solitude as even his cour- 
ageous wife was unable to endure. 

His good spirits were doubtless on the rebound 
after good work accomplished, for there, in ''his 
hat-box on the hill, " as he called his quarters at 
Baker's, were written his "Christmas Sermons," 
"The Lantern Bearer," and the opening chap- 
ters of "The Master of Ballantrae." In this 
"very decent house" he would talk old Mr. 
Baker to sleep on stormy nights, and the good 
old farmer, never suspecting that Stevenson was 
"anybody in particular," snored his responses 
to those flights in fact and fancy for which 
there are those who would have given hundreds 
of dollars to have been in the old farmer's place. 
But it was the very carelessness of Mr. Baker 
that helped along the talking spell. This is often 
the case with authors; they will pour out their 
precious knowledge into the ears of some incon- 
sequential person, a tramp as likely as not, 
picked up by the way; the non-critical attitude 
of the illiterate seems to help the thinker in 
forming a sequence of ideas; this explains, too, 
8 



why the artist values the lay criticism — it hits 
directly at any false note in a picture, thus sav- 
ing the painter much unnecessary delay. 

Sometimes Dr. Trudeau, also an exile of the 
mountains, would drop in professionally on 
these stormy evenings and would stay until about 
midnight, having entirely forgotten the nature 
of his visit. Stevenson had this faculty of mak- 
ing friends of those who served him. To the 
restaurant keeper of Monterey, Jules Simoneau, 
who trusted him when he was penniless and 
unknown, he presented a set of his books, leath- 
er-bound, each volume autographed, and this 
worthy man has since refused a thousand dollars 
for the set. ''Well," he explained, "I do not 
need the money, and I value the gift for itself. ' ' 
I think this friend of Stevenson's must feel like 
Father Tabb in the library of his friend when 
he said : 

' ' To see, when he is dead. 
The many books he read, 
And then again, to note 
The many books he wrote; 
How some got in, and some got out. 
'Tis very strange to think about." 

But to return to our story. 

Stevenson's Isle-of-the-blest was calling to 
him, and hope lay that way, where life was ele- 
mentary and where a man with but one lung to 
his account might live indefinitely. Not that 
he feared to die. Oh, no ! It takes more cour- 
age sometimes to live, but it was hard to give up 
9 



at forty, when one just begins to enter into the 
knowledge of one's own powers. A blind lady 
once said to me, in speaking of a mutual friend, 
"When Mr. B. comes, I feel as if there was a 
sprite in the room," and this is the way I felt 
about Stevenson, for during those moments of 
serious discussion when most people are tense, 
he moved actively about, and his philosophies 
were humanized by his warm, brown eyes and 
merrj'' exclamations. 

Another reason for the sprite feeling, was that 
he was consciously living in the past that day, 
and each face was like reseeing a milestone long 
passed, on some half-forgotten journey. 

It was this sense of detachment that, more 
than anything else, gave us the feeling that he 
was already beyond our mortal ken, that he was 
living at once in the visible and in the invisible, 
one to whom the passing of time had little signifi- 
cance. I think this is true, more or less, of all 
those who are marked for a brief earthly career. 

By this time the other members of the family 
had arrived. His mother, Lloyd Osbourne, and 
Mrs. Strong, his step-children; ''Fanny," his 
wife, was in California, looking after some prop- 
erty interests she had there, and provisioning 
the yacht chartered for the voyage to the South 
Seas. In all his enterprises she was his major- 
domo, and her devotion no doubt helped to pro- 
long his life. Their mutual agreement on all 
financial matters reminded me of a remark made 
by mine host at a country inn, who, in speaking 
of his wife, said, "She is my very best invest- 

10 



ment," and so was Mrs. Stevenson to her hus- 
band, Lewis, for so the family called him, and 
never Eobert Louis. I am inclined to think that 
yoking of contrasts is an important part in 
Nature 's economy of things. Ella Wheeler Wil- 
cox said to me that she owed her success to 
Robert — her husband — because in all her un- 
dertakings he went before and smoothed the 
way; but Mr. Wilcox's version of the case is 
another story. "I keep an eye on Ella," said 
he, "to prevent her from giving away too much 
money. ' ' 

Stevenson was now seated before the grate, 
the flickering light from the wood fire illuminat- 
ing his pale face to transparency. Now and 
then he relapsed into silence, gazing into the fire 
with the rapt look of one who sees visions. 

"Are you seeing a Salamander," I asked, "or 
do the sparks flying upward make you think of 
the golden alchemy of Lescaris?"* 

"A Salamander," he replied, smiling. "Yes, 
a carnivorous fire-dweller that eats up man and 
his dreams forever. ' ' 

"Gracious! But you are going to worse 
things than Salamanders, the Paua,t they will 
get you, if you don 't watch out. ' ' 

And then, suddenly becoming conscious of my 
temerity in interrupting the thread of his reflec- 
tions, to cover my embarrassment, I ran upstairs 
for my birthday-book, 

* Lescaris was a Greek shepherd who discovered the 
secret of transmuting the baser metals to fine gold, 

t Paua — Native name for the Tridacna Gigus, a huge 
clam. When it closes on any one, his only escape is by 
losing the limb. 

11 



An autograph! 

Of course. And he wrote it, reading out the 
quotation that filled in part of the space. It 
was one of Emerson 's Kantisms, something about 
not going abroad, unless you can as readily stay 
at home (I forget the exact words). It was de- 
cidedly malapropos and called out much merri- 
ment. 

"Oh, stay at home, dear Iieart, and rest; 
Home-keeping hearts are happiest." 

Somebody quoted, to which another replied : 

"Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits." 

The autograph has long since disappeared, 
but how often have I thought with regret of the 
amused expression in Stevenson's eyes at the 
Salamander fancy ! Wliat tales of witchery 
might have been spun from those themes worthy 
of the magic of his pen, the fire-dwelling man- 
eater, or the discovery of the Greek shepherd ! 

Stevenson was amused over our enthusiasm, 
and the eagerness of some of the younger mem- 
bers of the company to lionize him. 

"And what do you consider your brightest 
failure ? ' ' inquired our host. 

'' 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,' " he replied, 
without a moment's hesitation, adding, "that is 
the worst thing I ever wrote. ' ' 

"Yet you owe it to your dream-expedition," 
some one reminded him. 

"The dream-expedition?" he repeated. "Yes, 

12 



that was perhaps a compensation for the bad 
things. ' ' 

Benjamin Franklin has said that success ruins 
many a man. The success of "Trilby" killed 
Du Maurier, and many authors have had their 
heads turned for far less than the Jekyll and 
Hyde furore that swept the country at that time. 
But the ]\Iannerly Stevenson carried his honors 
lightly. Smiling over the popularity of the 
"worst thing he ever wrote," he revealed that 
quality in his own nature that was finer than 
anything he had given to print, the soul whose 
indomitable courage could bear the brunt of ad- 
verse circumstance, and even contumely, and 
hold its own integrity, becoming a law unto itself. 

Here was the man who had passed himself off 
as one of a group of steerage passengers on that 
memorable trip across the Atlantic on his way to 
Monterey in quest of the woman he loved, the 
man whose life was more vital in its love-motif 
than any of his own romances, the man who, in 
spite of ill-health and uncertainty of means, yet 
paid the price for his heart 's desire. 

"See here," said a lusty fellow, lurching up 
to him one day on deck. "You are not one of 
us, you are a gentleman in hard luck. ' ' 

"But," added Stevenson trimphantly, in tell- 
ing the story, "it was not until the end of the 
voyage that they found me out. ' ' 

This points the saying that it was the great 
washed that Stevenson fought shy of, and not 
the greater unwashed, with whom he was always 
on the friendliest terms. 
13 



He talked delightfully, too, on events connect- 
ed with his journey across the plains, which he 
made in an emigrant train, associating with 
Chinamen, who cooked their meals on board, and 
slept on planks let down from the side of the 
cars. 

"The air was thick," said he, "and an Orien- 
tal thickness, at that." 

But this period of his life was a painful sub- 
ject for his mother, who was present, and some 
of his best stories were omitted on her account. 

He told us, however, about being nearly 
lynched for throwing away a lighted match on 
the prairie. "And all the fuss," said he, "be- 
fore I was made aware of the nature of my 
crime." Both his mother and Sydney Colvin 
had done their best to make him accept enough 
money, as a loan, to make this trip comfortable. 
But he had refused. He was, he explained, 
' ' doing that which neither his family nor friends 
could approve," and he would therefore accept 
no financial aid. 

"Just before starting," said he, "being in 
need of money, I called at the Century office, 
where I had left some manuscript with the re- 
quest for an early decision, but was politely 
shown the door." 

Consternation seized us at this announcement, 
for all present knew the editor for a man of 
sympathy and heart. But Stevenson himself 
came to our relief with, "But Mr. Gilder was 
abroad that year." 

After the lapse of more than a quarter of a 
14 



century, it might not come amiss to recount an- 
other little incident at the same office. 

I mentioned one day to Mr. Gilder that some 
notes by Mr. Eaton written during his last ill- 
ness had been rejected. "You don't mean to 
tell me that anj^thing by Wyatt was rejected at 
this office," said he, and going into an inner 
room, returned in a few minutes with a goodly 
check. "There," said he, as he put it in my 
hand, "Send in the notes at your convenience." 

Stevenson laughed good-naturedly over the 
dilemmas the editors of western papers threw 
him into, by their tardiness in paying space 
rates for the stories and essays that now rank 
among his finest productions. Indeed one won- 
ders whether he would have survived the hard- 
ships of those Monterey days, had not the good 
Jules Simoneau found him "worth saving," a 
circumstance for which he is accorded the palm 
by posterity rather than for the flavor of his 
tamales. 

In many ways it is given to the humble to min- 
ister to the needs of the great. A distinguished 
author once said to me: "I could never have 
arrived without the help of my poor friends." 

As Stevenson went from reminiscence to 
reminiscence, we felt that from this period of 
his vivid obscurity might have been drawn ma- 
terial for some of his most stirring romances, 
and we were rewarded as good listeners by the 
discovery of that which he thought his best work, 
namely, the little story called "Will o' the Mill." 

"Ah !" exclaimed Mr. Sanborn, his eyes beam- 
15 



ing, **if you live to be as old as Methuselah, with 
all the world's lore at your finger-ends, you 
could never improve on that simple little story. ' ' 

We teased Stevenson a good deal on the huge- 
ness of his royalties on ''Dr. Jekyll and Mr. 
Hyde," which, besides having had what the pub- 
lishers call a "run," was bringing in a second 
goodly harvest from its dramatization, by which 
his voyage to the South Seas had become a real- 
ity. 

Kemembering his remark that his idea of Pur- 
gatory was a perpetual high wind, I asked him : 
' ' Why have you chosen an island for your future 
habitat; or, if an island, why not Nevis in the 
West Indies, where one is in the perpetual dol- 
drums, so to speak?" "There will be no more 
wind on Samoa than just enough to turn the 
page of the book one is reading," he replied; 
and windless Nevis was British, you see, and his 
first necessity was to get away where nobody 
reads. Like Jubai, son of Lamech, who felt 
himself hemmed in by hearing his songs repeat- 
ed in a land where everj'body sung, so he was 
shadowed by the Jekyll and Plyde mania in a 
land where everybody read. 

The very essence of his isolation is felt in a 
playful little fling at a Mr. Nerli, an artist, who 
went out there to paint his portrait, as well as 
the boredom everyone experiences in sitting to 
a painter : 

"Did ever mortal man hear tell, of sae singular a ferlie, 
Of the coming to Apia here, of the painter, Mr. Nerli? 

16 



He came; and O for a human found, of a' he was the 

pearlie, 
The pearl of a' the painter folk, was surely Mr. Nerli. 
He took a thraw to paint mysel'; he painted late and 

early; 

now! the mony a yawn I've yawned in the beard of 

Mr. Nerli. 
Whiles I would sleep, an' whiles would wake, an' whiles 
was mair than surly, 

1 wondered sair, as I sat there, f orninst the eyes of Nerli. 
O will he paint me the way I want, as borniie as a girlie? 
Or will he paint me an ugly type, and be damned to Mr. 

Nerli! 
But still and on, and whiehe 'er it is, he is a Canty Kerlie, 
The Lord proteck the back and neck of honest Mr. 

Nerli. ' ' 

Which shows that he was not altogether free 
from bothers even after reaching his "port o' 
dreams" in running away from Purgatorial 
winds, only to be held up by a paint-brush! 
Also, as most of us when excited fall back upon 
our early idiom, so Stevenson, in jest or lyric 
mood, drifted into the dialect of his fathers. 

We found, much to our surprise, that Steven- 
son knew every nook and cranny of the San- 
born estate, and told us of his trespassings — 
in their absence — in search of fresh eggs for 
his breakfast, having observed that the hens had 
formed nomadic habits, laying in the wood-pile 
and in odd corners all over the grounds. This 
was during a former visit when he stayed at 
Wainwright's, a landmark that has since been 
wiped out by fire. 

"One day, as I walked by," said he — mean- 
ing the Sanborn place — "I heard a hen cackling 
17 



in that triumphant way tliat left no doubt as to 
her having performed her duty to the species. 
I vaulted the fence for that particular egg and 
found it, still warm, with others, on its bed of 
soft chips. After that, I had an object in my 
long, solitary walks. New laid eggs for all occa- 
sions! And why not," he asked merrily, "see- 
ing there was no other proprietor than Chan- 
ticleer Peter, who had been the victim of neglect 
so long that he would crow me a welcome, and 
in time became so tame that he would spring 
on my knee and eat crumbs from my fingers ? ' ' 

The Sanborns were in Europe that year and, 
all things considered, is it any wonder that he 
took the place for being abandoned ? 

' ' Nothing but my instinct for the preservation 
of property kept me from smashing all the win- 
dows for exercise, ' ' said he. 

"I am glad thee was good to Peter," said 
Mrs. Sanborn. Her extinct brood was a pain 
still rankling in her bosom. She found Peter 
frozen stiff on the bough on which he was roost- 
ing, after his hens had disappeared by methods 
too elemental to explain. 

They had left no servants in charge, and 
neighbors there were none to restrain the attacks 
of marauders, and they were prize leghorns, too. 
She almost wailed. 

What a shame ! 

Well might all bachelors who are threatened 
with a wintry solitude take warning by unhappy 
Peter. 

But he is not without the honor due to mar- 

18 



tyrdom — is Peter, for Mrs, Sanborn had him 
stuffed, and presented him to "Fanny," who 
took him to California, where he survived the 
great San Francisco earthquake. 

"He must have been our mascot," said Lloj'd 
Osbourne to me long after, "for the fire that 
followed the earthquake came just as far as the 
gate and no farther." 

Since the cup that cheers is not customary in 
Quaker homes our hostess proposed an egg-nog 
by way of afternoon collation and all entered 
with zest into the mixing of the decoction. One 
brought the eggs, another the sugar-bowl, while 
our host went to the cellar for that brand of 
John Barleycorn that transmutes every beverage 
to a toast. 

Now, while Stevenson came to regard new- 
laid eggs as the natural manna of the desert, he 
had his doubts as to the feasibility of egg-nog, 
seeing that milk is a necessary constituent. He 
did not know, you see, that a little white Alder- 
ney cow was chewing the cud of salt-meadow 
grasses in the woods nearby, and, even as he 
doubted, Mrs. Sanborn and her Ganymedes had 
brought in a jug of the white fluid, topped with 
a froth like sea-foam. 

"It's nectar for the gods on Olympus," said 
I — meaning the milk. 

"True Ambrosia of the meadows," agreed 
Mrs. Sanborn. 

"Well, this is Elysium, and we are the gods 
to-day." 

Elysium-ou-Manasquan. 
19 



"To be more exact," said Stevenson, "it 
should be Argos ; it was there they celebrated the 
cow, as we are now celebrating " 

"Tidy," said Mrs. Sanborn. 

"lo," corrected Stevenson, waving his fork, 
for he, too, was helping to beat the eggs : 

* * Argos-on-Manasquan. ' ' 

He lingered over the name Manasquan as 
though he enjoyed saying it. 

"The first thing that impressed me in travel- 
ling in America," said he, "was your Indian 
names for towns and rivers. Temiscami, 
Coghnawaga, Ticonderoga, the very sound of 
them thrills one with romantic fancies. Why do 
3'ou not revive more of these charming Indian 
names ? ' ' 

"We are too young yet to appreciate our 
legendary wealth," said Mr. Sanborn, with an 
emphasis on the "legendary." 

"Qui s' excuse, s 'accuse," reminded Mrs. Low, 
who was a French woman. 

"Quite right," assented Mr. Sanborn, "it is 
not precedent we lack, but valuations." 

"To return to Argos," said Mrs. Sanborn — 
the peace-maker — "I always feel in the presence 
of a divine mystery when I milk Tidy. No one 
could be guilty of a frivolous thing before the 
calm eye of that little cow." 

Mrs. Sanborn possessed the reverent spirit of 
the pre-Raphaelites which burned modestly in 
its Quaker shrine or flared up like lightning as 
occasion required ; and she delighted in the deifi- 



20 



cation of her little cow. And why not? Had 
not Tidy 's worshipped ancestors nourished kings 
of antiquity, and given idols to their temples, 
and stood she not to-day as perfect a symbol 
of maternity? 

I do not now remember whether it was re- 
ferring to Samoa as Stevenson's ''port o' 
dreams" that brought up the discussion of 
dreams. To some one who asked him if he be- 
lieved that dreams came true, he replied, "Cer- 
tainly, they are just as real as anything else." 

' ' Well, it 's what one believes that counts, isn 't 
it, and one can form any theory in a world where 
dreams are as real as other things, and is it the 
same with ideals?" somebody ventured. 

"Ideals," said Stevenson, "are apt to stay 
by you when material things have taken the 
proverbial wings, and are assets quite as en- 
during as stone fences. ' ' 

"And was it a want of faith in the dur- 
ability of stone fences, or ignorance of their 
dream-assets, that accounts for the way that 
Cato and Demosthenes solved their problems?" 
was the next question, but as this high strain 
was interrupted by more frivolity, my thoughts 
again reverted to the solidity of Stevenson's 
dreams, that now furnished his inquiring soul 
with new fields for exploitation, as well as a 
dominant interest to fill up the measure of his 
earthly span. 

He regretted leaving the haunts of man, he 
told us, particularly the separation from his 



21 



friends, which was satisfactory, coming, as it 
did, from the man who coined the truism that 
the way to have a friend is to be one. 

But this was his fighting chance, "and a 
fellow has to die fighting, you know." What 
was civilization anyway to one who needed only 
sunshine and negligee? Thus in no other than 
a tone of pleasantry did he refer to his condition, 
and never have I seen a face or heard a voice so 
exempt from bitterness. He told me, in fact, 
that he was unable to breathe in a room with 
more than four people in it at a time. This 
sounds like an exaggeration, or one of the vagar- 
ies of the sick, yet things that seem trifles to the 
well, can be tragic to the nervous sufferer. Mrs. 
Low has told me that at a dinner of only five or 
six covers Stevenson would frequently get up 
and throw open a window to breathe in enough 
ozone to enable him to get through the evening. 

He was embarking to the lure of soft airs and 
long, subliminal solitudes, accepting gracefully 
the one hope held out, when the crowded habita- 
tions of cities had become a torture. We felt the 
pity of the enforced exile of so companionable a 
spirit, but we did not voice it, feeling con- 
strained to live up to the standard of cheerful- 
ness he had so valiantly set for us. 

Mr, Eaton, who boasted that, in him, a good 
sea captain had been spoiled to make a bad paint- 
er, encouraged Stevenson to talk freely of his 
plans, and he dwelt at some length on the beauty 
and seaworthiness of the yacht Casco, that had 
been chartered for the voyage. This sea theme 
22 



led, of course, to the inevitable fish stories, and 
after some mythological whale had been swal- 
lowed by some non-Biblical Jonah, I remarked, 
in the lull that followed, "Maybe the waters of 
the South Seas will yield you up a heroine. ' ' 

A laugh went around at this, for some present 
thought I had said a "herring." But Steven- 
son had no doubt as to my meaning. "I am 
always helpless," said he, "when I try to de- 
scribe a woman ; but then, ' ' he added, brightly, 
"how should I hope to understand a woman, 
when God, who made her, cannot?" As straws 
show how the wind blows, so this little joke 
throws light on Stevenson 's state of mind toward 
womankind in general. During this heroine 
discussion, he remarked that he was always "un- 
conscionably bored" by the conversation of 
young girls. He had no desire, it seems, to 
mould the young idea to his taste, as Horace, 
when he said: 

"Place me where the world is not habitable, 
Where the Day-God's Chariot too near approaches, 
Yet will I love Lalage, see her sweet smile, 
Hear her sweet prattle." 

Even as a school-boy he was unable to mingle 
with lads of his own age. This, doubtless, is 
another of the precocities of the early-doomed, 
who feel that every moment of life they have 
must be lived to the full. A well-known artist, 
who was suffering with tuberculosis, once said to 
me, in describing his working hours at the 
studio, "I must make every touch tell, and 
23 



every moment count," So to Stevenson the 
rounded out sympathies of maturity were more 
attractive than the sweet prattle of girlhood, 
because, like the painter, with his paint, he, 
with his life, had to 7nake every moment counL 
This, of course, explains his having chosen a 
woman so much older than himself as a life-com- 
panion; a woman in whom he could find a re- 
sponse on his own mental plane. 

In the following little poem, which is perhaps 
his best known tribute to his wife, he embodies 
in cameo clearness my own early impression of 
the intrinsic qualities of her character: 

"Trusty, dusky, vivid true. 

With eyes of gold and bramble-dew, 

Steel-true and blade-straight, 
The great artificer 

Made my mate. 

Honor, anger, valor, fire; 

A love that life could never tire; 

Death quench or evil stir. 
The mighty master 

Gave to her. 

Teacher, tender, comrade, wife, 
A fellow-farer true through life. 

Heart-whole and soul-free. 
The august father 

Gave to me." 

It was at the Lows' Apartment in New York 

that I first met Mrs. Stevenson. I called one 

afternoon to see Mrs. Low, who was convalescing 

from an illness. She sent word that she would 

24 



be able to see me in half an hour, and I was 
shown into the living-room, where, meditating 
by the fire, sat Mrs. Stevenson. She seemed 
exceedingly picturesque to me, in a rich black 
satin gown, her hair tied back by a black ribbon 
in girlish fashion and falling in three ringlets 
down her back. 

She told me stories of her first arrival in New 
York that were as amusing as some of Steven- 
son's prairie experiences. She engaged a mes- 
senger-boy to pioneer her through the great stone 
jungle, not from fear of pickpockets or the like, 
but to save her from a helplessly lost feeling she 
always had when alone on the streets of a strange 
city. On arriving, she went directly to the old 
St. Stephen's Hotel on University Place and 
Eleventh Street, registering thus: 

"Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson (wife of the 
author of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)." 

To those of the friends who smiled over it, 
she explained that, being ill at the time, she had 
a horror of dying unknown in a hotel room and 
being sent to the morgue. 

I replied to this by telling her how my mother, 
being alone at a large London hotel for a night, 
insisted on having one of the chambermaids 
sleep with her, no doubt from the same sense of 
hopeless wandering in a similar Dfedalian Laby- 
rinth. 

Years after, some autograph collector hunted 
up that old St. Stephen's register and cut the 
name from the page, which reminded me of a 
little story I once told Mrs. Low. 
25 



As a boy Mr. Eaton one day mounted the pul- 
pit of the church in the little village of Phillips- 
burg, P. Q., Canada, where he was born, and 
made a drawing on one of the fly-leaves of the 
Bible. When it was later told in the village 
that he had exhibited at the Paris Salon, some- 
one cut the leaf from the Book of Books, 

When one starts story telling to a good listen- 
er, little incidents dart through the brain that 
for long have lain dormant, and to pass the time, 
I told Mrs. Stevenson that on the day Mr. Eaton 
finished his portrait of President Garfield for the 
Union League Club, he asked the newly landed 
Celtic maid if she would wash his brushes for 
him (an office that he generally performed for 
himself), to which she exclaimed joyfully, "To 
think that I have lived to see the day that I 
washed the brushes that painted the President 
of the United States ! ' ' 

What the artist regarded as an added chore 
to her already full labors, was to her willing 
hands a pride and an honor. It may be a truism 
that a rose by any other name would smell as 
sweet, but there certainly seems to be a good 
deal in a view-point. In looking back, I know 
that I grasped, that day, something of what the 
later years proved her to the world, for I read 
her then, as a highly gifted woman who had 
submerged her own personality in the greater 
gifts and personal claims of her invalid husband 
and in a recent reading of her Samoan notes 
there was imparted to me, by means too subtle 
to explain, those glimpses that insight bestows, 
26 




Wyatt Eaton as a Student 
Photo by Kurtz, N. Y. 



that are called reading between the lines — a 
realization of the hardship of much of her life 
in the South Seas. I felt distinctly the under- 
current of troubled restlessness beneath the ap- 
parent good time of an unusual environment. 

To the woman who loves becoming toilets and 
the vivacity and movement of life in literary 
and social centres, and who, moreover, possesses 
the useful hands and right instincts both in ar- 
tistic and domestic relationships, the long so- 
journs in desolate places, the doing with make- 
shifts and the like that these entail, are a real 
deprivation, and a persistent irritation that calls 
for the counteraction of an exceptional degree of 
poise and self-mastery. 

Nothing, in short, emphasizes this sense of her 
isolation, to my mind, so strongly as Stevenson 
himself in describing her quarters on board the 
schooner Equator, as a ''beetle-haunted most un- 
womanly bower," and this simultaneously with 
the reminder that it will be long before her 
eyes behold again the familiar scenes of rural 
beauty dear to her memory. 

The pen sketch of Stevenson forming the fron- 
tispiece was drawn by Mr. Eaton in a few 
minutes from memory. I regret to say that it is 
reproduced from a reproduction, the original 
(owned by Mr. S. S. McClure) could not be 
found, when wanted, Mr. McClure being in 
France at the time, but we were glad to obtain 
one of these copies, now becoming rare. 

I have never seen a portrait of Stevenson 
that equalled his appearance that day. The bas- 
27 



relief by Saint Gaudens approximates it some- 
what in ethereal thinness, but the verve, the 
glow, the vital spark, are lacking even in that. 

It has always been a satisfaction to me that 
our meeting was on an occasion when his illness 
was least apparent. My memory of his face has 
nothing of that pain-worn expression so often 
seen in photographs. 

The afternoon of the day we received his mes- 
sage, I caught a glimpse of him at a distance 
from my window. He was coming up from the 
Inlet, where, no doubt, he had gone to take a 
plunge. There was a briskness about his move- 
ments that seemed like the unconscious enjoy- 
ment of sound health, and in appearance he cer- 
tainly was as romantic a figure as any of his own 
characters. Whenever I read ''In the High- 
lands," I see him as he appeared at that mo- 
ment, treading through a maze of bright sabatia 
and sweet clover, the mental picture, as it were, 
becoming a part of that beautiful and touching 
poem: 

111 the highlands, in the country places. 
Where the old plain men have rosy faces. 
And the young fair maidens quiet eyes; 
Where essential silence cheers and blesses, 
And for ever in the hill-recesses 
Her more lovely music broods and dies. 

O to mount again where erst I haunted; 
Where the old red hills are bird-enchanted. 
And the low green meadows bright with sward; 
And when even dies, the million-tinted, 
And the night has come, and planets glinted, 
Lo! the valley hollow, lamp-bestarred. 

28 



O to dream, O to awake and wander 
There, and with delight to take and render, 
Through the trance of silence, quiet breath; 
Lo! for there, among the flowers and grasses, 
Only the mightier movement sounds and passes; 
Only winds and rivers, life and death. 

I felt the poetry of the day more poignantly 
as the hour for parting approached, and when 
the sun began to wane, I went out on the lawn 
to see the place under the spell of the lengthened 
shadows and the mellow sun-rays that turn the 
tree-trunks to burnished gold. This has always 
been my favorite hour, this charmed hour before 
sunset, when we can almost feel the earth's 
movement under our feet — an hour that tran- 
scends in poetry anything that can be imagined 
by the finite mind. 

I walked up and down under the cedars bor- 
dering the river, to quiet my emotion. It was 
there, too, under the cedars, that a remark of 
Mr. Eaton's, in describing to me his first meet- 
ing with Stevenson, flashed across my memory: 
"He combined the face of a boy with the dis- 
tinguished bearing of a man of the world." 

And I thought, as I saw him then, merrily re- 
calling the scenes and escapades of student life, 
"How well the distinguished man of the world 
had succeeded in keeping the heart of a boy ! ' ' 

A passage in Mr. Low's book, "A Chronicle 
of Friendships," that recalls that day most 
vividly, is this: "Stevenson never once ex- 
cused himself from our company on the plea of 
having work to do." For so it was with us; 
29 



he seemed to have no cares or preoccupations, 
but to be content to be there, enjoying the con- 
versation and the pleasantness of the passing 
hour. 

I had a cosy quarter of an hour with his moth- 
er after my walk, and off by ourselves, in a cor- 
ner, away from interruption, she spoke of her 
son's childhood. In her eyes, he was still the 
"bonnie wee laddie" who scouted about in his 
make-believe worlds among the chairs and tables 
in the drawing-room while she entertained her 
friends, and we repeated bits from "A Child's 
Garden of Verses." 

I think that if there is any clue to the char- 
acter of a great man we must look to his mother. 
Mrs. Stevenson embodied the idea of her son's 
peculiar charm ; there was the same triumphal 
youthfulness, and her cheeks were round and 
rosy like a ripe apple. 

I think of the mother now, after so many years, 
as the crowning influence of the day, quiet and 
reticent, but always felt, and honored by all as 
became the mother of our welcome guest. 

In her letters, written in the Marquesas to her 
sister in Scotland, she carries out this impres- 
sion of habitual freshness of spirit, and her 
humor is subtle and optimistic : ' ' Nothing gives 
me more pleasure or a better appetite than an 
obstacle overcome." She shows herself the life 
of ' ' The Silver Ship, ' ' as the people of Fakarava 
dubbed the Casco, and never a word of criticism 
or complaint is penned at any inconvenience or 
annoyance endured by the way. Indeed, one 
30 



marvels at her tranquillity in the midst of so 
many complications — just as one wondered at 
the simplicity of Queen Victoria in her diary. 
One of the chief delights in the perusal of these 
letters is the questions they project into the 
mind of the reader. Is it a style, a native virtue, 
a mannerism, a fad, or what? 

For example, she never suspects that the 
French man-o'-war in one of the bays may ac- 
count for some of the good behavior of the na- 
tives, or that their bounty in cocoanuts and 
bread-fruit may be tendered with an eye to the 
novelties to be had in exchange, but accepts all 
in good faith, as part of their native generosity. 

And what a joy it is to see her taking holy 
communion with these people, so lately reclaimed 
from cannabalism, and taking the ceremony au 
grand serieux^^l Thus, a missionary within, a 
warship without, the amenities of religion and 
society are enjoyed to the full. 

One lays down these letters and laughs, many 
a time, where no laughter was intended. Cer- 
tainly, she was a good mixer as well as the born 
mother of a genius. 

Stevenson's death is an anomaly no less pathe- 
tic than his life, for in eluding extinction by 
consumption, he probably achieved a still earlier 
end by apoplexy. I had the account from Mrs. 
Low, who received it directly from "Fanny" by 
letter. Mrs. Stevenson was mixing a salad of 
native ingredients of which Stevenson was very 
fond, when he joined her in the kitchen, com- 
plaining that he was not very well, and sitting 
31 



down, laid his head on her shoulder, where in 
about twenty minutes he expired. 

I said at the beginning that I was not disap- 
pointed in the personality of Stevenson, but it 
would be nearer the mark to say that my antici- 
pations fell far short of the reality. 

It is often the case in meeting literary cele- 
brities that one has the feeling that they are first 
authors, and after that men. Rodin, the French 
sculptor, focuses this idea by saying that ' ' many 
are artists at the expense of some qualities of 
manhood." With Stevenson one was clearly in 
the presence of a man, and after that the scholar 
and the gentleman. 

Was it not this fine distinction that, in spite 
of woolen shirt and a third-class transportation, 
awoke the suspicions of his companions of the 
steerage, that prompted the already quoted re- 
mark, ' ' You are not one of us T ' 

And on that memorable journey across the 
plains, seeking the woman of his choice, re- 
solved, though penniless and unknown, to make 
her his wife in spite of every obstacle, the truth 
that the frailty of the body is no criterion for 
the strength of the spirit is well brought out. 
It was, in fact, this quality of initiative that 
constituted his chief charm — the quality that, 
above all others, made us so spontaneous in his 
presence and so proud of his achievement. 

We knew that we were seeing him at his best, 

surrounded by his old friends, and with the light 

of the memoiy of his youthful ambitions on his 

face. We knew, too, that the parting would be 

32 



a life-long one, and that we would never look 
upon his like again. This regret each knew to 
be uppermost in the mind of the others, but when 
the good-byes began, we made no sign that it 
was to be more than the absence of a day. 

Nevertheless, the tensity of the last moments 
of parting was keenly felt. Stevenson had 
planned to spend his last night at Wainwright's, 
and Lloyd Osbourne was to row him across the 
river. Mr. Eaton and I went down to the river- 
bank to see them off and to wave our last adieux. 

The rumble of carriage-wheels in the distance, 
and the reverberations of footsteps and voices on 
the old wooden bridge grew fainter and died 
away, before the little boat was pushed off; and 
then, these two friends, Robert Louis Stevenson 
and Wyatt Eaton, both at the zenith of their life 
and powers, and both hovering so closely on the 
brink of eternity, sent their last messages to each 
other, across the distance, until the little boat 
had glided away, on the ebb-tide, a mere speck 
in the gray transparency of the twilight. 



33 



FATE OF THE CA8C0 

There are ships that, like certain people, seem 
created for an unusual and distinguishing des- 
tiny, and are unable long to survive the destruc- 
tion of those peculiar conditions that have given 
them their dominating qualities, animation and 
color. Mr, Francis Dickie of Vancouveur, B. C, 
has described with a vivid pen the later adven- 
tures and slow foundering of the Casco. 

This gentleman has kindly given me permis- 
sion to reprint it here. Our sympathy goes out 
to the beautiful yacht in her lonely buffetings 
and chill decay, but though stricken and van- 
ished, we know that she will live long in romance 
and in song as "The Silver Ship." 



34 



FATE OF THE CA8C0 

by 

Francis Dickie 

Forty miles from Nome, Alaska, breaking 
under the Arctic winter on the shores of bleak 
King Island, lies the skeleton of a wrecked top- 
mast schooner. 

Early in June, 1919, a small crew of adven- 
turous spirits had turned her nose out through 
the Behring Sea, headed for the Lena River and 
Anadyn — and gold. She was small and old, 
this yacht, but what are thirty-three years when 
a craft has the proper tradition for daring, haz- 
ardous adventure? 

September storms swept upon the Casco, 
pounding her teak sides with unfamiliar North- 
ern blasts. Fog, cold, night — and she lay shud- 
dering on the rocks, snow-beaten, ice-broken, 
abandoned by her crew. 

So ships pass and become smooth driftwood 
on scattered beaches. But sometimes the magic 
of long adventure will gather around an aban- 
doned hull, and form a rich memory to tempt the 
eternal wanderlust of man. What is an old 
ship but a floating castle built upon the mem- 
ories of the men who have helmed her? Some- 
times she plies the same dull course throughout 
her existence. Sometimes she changes trade 
with surprising chances. So it was with the 
Casco — now a glittering pleasure yacht, whim 
of an old millionaire, now stripped of gaudy 
35 



trappings and bent to the grim will of seal 
hunter and opium trader. 

In the opening of Robert Louis Stevenson's 
novel, "The "W^recker," with red ensign waving, 
sailing into the port of Tai-o-hae in the Mar- 
quesas, the Casco takes her place in fiction. But 
she is far more romantic as she has sailed in fact, 

"Winged by her own impetus and the dying 
breeze, the Casco skimmed under cliffs, opened 
out a cove, showed us a beach and some green 
trees, and flitted by again, bowing to the swell 
. . . from close aboard arose the bleating of 
young lambs ; a bird sang on the hillside ; the 
scent of the land and of a hundred fruits or flow- 
ers flowed forth- to meet us; and presently" — 

Presently they sailed among the Isles of 
Varien, sunny and welcoming in the South Seas. 

Stevenson wrote this in the cabin of the Casco, 
in the summer of '88. His always delicate health 
had broken completely under the San Francisco 
climate. Friends had urged a cruise to the 
South Seas, he had gladly acquiesced, and looked 
around for a ship. There was a subtle romantic 
call for the author of "Treasure Island" in a 
voyage on a ship of his own choosing and direc- 
tion under the soft skies of the tropics. 

The Casco had been built by an eccentric Cali- 
fornia millionaire. Dr. Merritt, for cruising 
along the coast, and no money had been spared 
in her fittings. She was a seventy-ton fore-and- 
aft schooner, ninety-five feet long, with graceful 
lines, high masts, white sails and decks, shiny 
brasswork, and a gaudy silk-hung saloon. She 
36 



was not perhaps too staunch a cruiser. "Her 
cockpit was none too safe, her one pump was 
inadequate in size and almost worthless; the 
sail plan forward was meant for racing and not 
for cruising; and even if the masts were still in 
good condition, they were quite unfitted for 
hurricane weather." 

Nevertheless, negotiations were opened with 
Dr. Merritt. That gentleman had read of Stev- 
enson. He had conceived him as an erratic, 
irresponsible soul who wrote poetry and let 
everything else go to the devil. He 'd be blamed, 
he said, if he'd let any scatter-brained writer 
use his precious yacht. Finally, a meeting be- 
tween the two was effected; and, speedily 
charmed by Stevenson's manner, he decided to 
let him have the Casco. Therefore, with Capt. 
Otis as skipper, four deck hands, "three Swedes 
and the inevitable Finn," and a Chinese cook, 
the Stevensons sailed June 28, 1888, for the 
Marquesas. 

Stevenson's health rapidly improved in the 
first weeks of the voyage. He was charmed by 
the Southern islands and began making notes 
and gathering data from the natives for later 
books. He wrote parts of "The Master of Bal- 
lantrae" and of "The "Wrong Box," and spent 
much of his time studying the intricate person- 
ality of his skipper, whose portrait afterward 
appeared in the pages of "The Wrecker." 

After months of idle cruising, it was discover- 
ed that the Cameo's masts were dangerously rot- 
ten. Repairs were immediately necessary. 

37 



Meantime Stevenson became less and less well. 
When the ship was again in commission and 
took them to Hawaii, he realized the impossbilty 
of his returning to America, and, sending the 
Casco back to San Francisco, started upon the 
exile that was to terminate in his death. 

Thereafter, the Casco changed hands frequent- 
ly, exploring the mysteries of seal-hunting, 
opium-smuggling, coast-trading and gold-adven- 
ture, among other things. In the early nine- 
ties, she was known, because of her swiftness, 
quickness and ease of handling at the wheel, to 
be the best of a hundred and twenty ships en- 
gaged in the extinction of the pelagic seal. But 
when, in 1898, the sealers found themselves im- 
poverished by their own ruthlessness, the Casco, 
her decks disfigured with blood and her hold 
rotten from the drip of countless salty pelts, 
was discarded and left to rot on the mud flats of 
Victoria. Too much of the spirit of adventure, 
however, lurked in the tall masts of the Casco to 
let her waste away to such an ugly ending. 
When the smuggling of Chinese and opium was 
at its height, up and down the coast there were 
whisperings of the daring work of the smuggler 
Casco. The revenue officers knew positively that 
she was laden with illicit Oriental cargo, and 
with Chinese immigrants; but slie escaped them 
again and again, her old speed and lightness 
returning. Once, however, the wind failed her, 
and the revenue launch hauled alongside. Search 
for contraband was instituted; but not a China- 
man appeared, not a trace of opium. Fooled! 
38 




The Casco, Just Before It was Wrecked on 

King Island 

Kind permission of Mr. L. W. Pedrose 



— and they climbed down sheepishly into their 
launch. Later it developed that while the rev- 
enue men were still far astern, the crew had 
weighted the sixty Chinamen and dumped them 
overboard along with the opium! 

From the swift romance of opium running 
the Casco turned drudge. She carried junk be- 
tween Victoria and Vancoucer ; she was a train- 
ing ship for the Boy Sea Scouts of Vancouver; 
she was a coasting trader in 1917 when the 
shipping boom gave value to even her little 
hulk ; and in between times she lay on mud flats. 

In the spring of 1919 came the stories of gold 
in Northern Siberia. With high hopes of for- 
tunes to be made, the Northern Mining and Trad- 
ing Company sprang into existence, and the 
Casco was chartered to dare the far Northern 
seas and icy gaps. 

So she died at sea, as all good ships should, 
with the storm at her back and the mists over 
her, with snow as a shroud, and brooding ice- 
bergs to mourn. She lies cold and stately, with 
her memories of tropical splendor, high adven- 
ture, and light romance — this little ship whose 
cabin knew Stevenson. 



39 



PORTRAITS FROM STEVENSON 

by 

Geoege Steele Seymour 



41 



TEEASUEE ISLAND 

Jim Hawkins, Jim Hawkins, the treasure ship 's a-sailing, 
The lure of life is calling us beyond the shining sea, 

The distant land of mystery her beauty is unveiling, 
And shall we then be lagging when there's work for 
you and me? 

The pirate ship is on the main, Jim Hawkins, Jim Haw- 
kins, 
She flies the Jolly Eoger and there's battle in her prow, 
Then shall we play the craven-heart and lurk ashore, Jim 
Hawkins, 
When fortune with a lavish turn is waiting for us now? 

Jim Hawkins, Jim Hawkins, the pirate crew has landed. 
With guns and knives between their teeth they're steal- 
ing on the prey. 
Then let's afoot and follow them and catch them 
bloody-handed — 
When life and joy are calling us, shall we bide long 
away? 
Jim Hawkins, Jim Hawkins! 



43 



ALAN BEECK 

Is't you, Alan? You of the ready sword 
And nimble feet, and keen, courageous eye, 
Quick to affront, and yet more quick to spy 

Aught that might touch your own dear absent lord I 

Hero and clown! How it sets every chord 
Athrill to see your feathered hat draw nigh. 
And all your brave, fantastic finery! 

Eomance no stranger picture doth afford. 

For I have met you in the House of Fear, 

Have watched you cross the torrent of Glencoe 
And climbed with you the rugged mountain-side. 
We are old comrades, and I hold most dear 
This loyal friend and yet more loyal foe 
Who bore a kingly name with kingly pride. 



44 



ELLIS DUCKWOETH 

Was there a rustle of the leafy bed? 

Heard you no footstep in the matted grass? 

Down the deep glade where fearsome shadows pass 
What is it lurks so still? What secret dread 
Troubles the tangled branches overhead? 

An ye be foe to this good man, alas! 

No art shall save you though ye walk in brass. 
Swift to your heart shall the Black Death be sped. 

The woods are still — for that was years ago — 
And now no baleful presence haunts the glade, 
No train-band rules the highway as of yore. 
Eomance is dead. Adventure, too, lies low. 
Long in the grave is Duckworth's kingdom laid. 
And the black arrow speeds its way no more. 



45 



SAINT IVES 

Viscomte, your health. Confusion to the foe. 

The noble lord your uncle — bless his name ! 

And may your wicked captors die in shame. 
I kiss your hand ; I kiss your forehead — so ! 
The castle cliff is steep, but down below 

Both fortune and the lady Flora wait. 

Oh, you will meet them, I anticipate, 
Your hand upon your heart, and bowing low. 

The stage-coach lumbers heavily tonight. 

Its wheels sound loudly on the stony flag. 

What's that I A chest of florins in the drag 
Gone! And the rascally postboy taken flight I 

Ah, well, God send him a dark night, and we . . 

Your health, Saint Ives, in sparkling Burgundy. 



46 



PRINCE FLORIZEL 

Try these perfectos, gentlemen. The flavour 

I recommend. A smoke-royal. With white wines 
You'll find them fragrantest. That spicy savour 

Comes only in stock from the Isle of Pines. 
Here are cigarettes, Turkish and Egyptian, 

Such as no other merchant has to sell, 
And Trichinopoly of the same description 

I smoked when I was called Prince Florizel. 

That was before I stooped to trade plebeian, 
Left my exalted home and wandered far, 

Emptied my plate at danger's feast Protean, 
Beside the well of wisdom broke my jar. 

Till Louis looked from out the empyrean 
And in the dust of Mayfair found a star. 



47 



THE EBB TIDE 

Green palm-tops bending low by silent seas 

Like heads in prayer — 
Life's turmoil nor its multiplicities 

Are there. 

But only calms and potencies hold sway 

That will not be denied, 
Come with the surge of dawn and drift away 

With the ebb tide. 



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